Life Without Him
by Queen8Candy
Summary: "I love you is what I'm trying to say, Elsa"/ "You sound like you're describing life grand if we went on our separate ways"/He got up, towering over me, eyes are red. "What I'm saying is that I don't want that. Are you kidding? Life without you is bullshit. It's not life, it's hell"/"Than what are you saying?"...Little did I know, I never got to hear what he had to say after all...


The atmosphere shook under my feet, resulting in me collapsing dramatically on my mattress. The sound of an obnoxious roar of a vacuum from the other room, my father's room, kept my eyelids from closing; along with the blaring music of Indie Rock music, and muffling sounds of talk shows coming from my own T.V. in the corner. The room was dimly lit with vanilla candles, a burning lantern, and a flickering lamp on the dusty bed side table. The harsh arguments in my head was telling me to just close my eyes already, and that they are tired of looking at the bright light coming from my phone.

My knees ache. My eyes are strained. I don't wanna go on Instagram for the hundredth time. The sweat droplets coming from my forehead and the mascara mixed tears stain the neon orange pillow under me. I'm dirty. I haven't taken a shower in weeks and my arms can support me on that.

"Elsa! Get your ass downstairs right now, young lady!"

I wanna listen to my mother's orders, but I don't have the energy and/or will to do so.

Exactly one minute and six seconds later my dad bangs on the wall next to my room, his office, and shrieks "You better listen to your mother, ya hear!?"

Yes, sir. I hear. I just don't listen.

The television creates a loud blaring shuffle as I press the button to turn it off. I'm left with the noise of my little sister's disgusting taste of music, my mother and father's glass throwing arguments about who's fault it was for the way I turned out, and me. Me me me me. My head, myself, and the insults I throw at myself. It's already enough that I'm reminded by how much pollution I've caused just from being born from my peers and the people I call "family".

At exactly 4:56 pm, five minutes after my father bangs on my wall, my thoughts are accompanied by seven gentle knocks coming from my door. a tune. Seven knocks. A tune. It plays in my head over and over and over again. A tune...

"Hey, Els. It's me, Anna."

My heart twitches and my muscles freeze. I muffle words I can't even translate into my soaked pillow.

"Mom and Dad just wanted to let you know that it's time for dinner," she pauses and I could've sworn I heard an uneven exhale. Crying perhaps? "If you don't come down soon your pasta will be fed to the dog, and you'll have to have ano-"

She pauses and a break of sobs pours out of her mouth, nose, and eyes. This is the same routine everyday.

"You're gonna have a-another night t-to starve..."

She collapses against my door in an emotional break down. Hans beat her again, I can tell. She doesn't cry like this unless she was hit.

"Come downstairs, damnit!"

I muffle against my pillow again, louder this time.

"He's not coming back, Elsa! He's not! Face the facts and stop hurting yourself like this! You're hurting everyone, you selfish _WHORE_!"

Every single night.

* * *

 _The wind was rushing through my ears as we were on the freeway. The smile I saw on his face as he asked if he could turn all of the windows down. The wind against my ears. His roaring cries of laughter of how stupid I looked when I would confess my love for this bitch. The wind. His soothing voice. The wind. His eyes as he looked towards me. He's trying to say something. What is he saying? I can't hear him. The wind..._

* * *

It's 9:00 pm and I still haven't went downstairs. My room is inhabited with cigarette smoke and clothes. I'm a sick bastard and I deserve to be treated the way I'm being treated right now. I have to resist the urge to go downstairs and retrieve a bottle. I can't though, the family therapist is downstairs, and if he sees the state I'm in he'll call for another appointment with me privately.

"Fuck you," I say to myself. My voice is high, sore, dry, and my stupid Norwegian accent hasn't washed off quite yet.

The mirror that I look in has been shattered, and if he were here next to me he'd be chanting me to beat that mirror's ass. He's an angel like that.

 _"If you decide to be the way you are today,"_ he used to say _,"Than I'll be you too. We can be matching personalities today!_ _"_ That saying he told me every single morning made me smile for at least ten seconds max, if not, a whole minute. He would DM me in the morning before I got on the bus and ask me how I'm feeling because he's corny like that. I'd usually ask him why even though I'd already knew his answer, and he'd tell me that whatever mood I was feeling he'd match. He wanted to be like me, and I wanted to be like him: positive, athletic, kind, fun, funny, cheerful, and wise. I swear, ninety-nine percent of the time he had the personality of an old grandfather that still had the history books of the Civil War in a rusty trunk in his closet. And he did.

When I was finished admiring my acne, dry skin, and the way I looked in the cigarette smoke for about three to four minutes I got three loud bangs on my door.

* * *

 _"Why are you so obsessed with numbers and time, Elsa?"_

 _"Why are you so obsessed with the Civil War, Mr.-"_

 _"Don't even say my name, Missy,"he chuckled, lighting another cig."I'm a secret agent, and I encourage you you will not be safe for the next twenty-four hours if you say either of our names... they might be listening."  
_

 _I rolled my eyes. "You_ are _a year younger than me," I grinned snatching the lighter from his hands._

 _He choked on the smoke, a squeaky cough escaped his mouth. His eyes watered. "Don't you see? I'm a ninja!"_

 _I looked up and down at him, then took a gaze at our surroundings. He was wearing mitch-match everything: he wore his midnight blue hoodie, grass covered grey shorts with his boxers showing, a neon orange beanie, and_ Jordans _. We were at the senior center park, right next to an abandoned train track. Trees and black berry bushes surrounded us._

 _"No, I do not see that you are a ninja."_

 _"That's the point."_

 _I gave an obnoxious fake laugh, slapping my knee. "Well, don't you just crack me up, huh Mr. Overland?!"_

 _"As to you, Mrs. Overland."_

 _Just the sound of him calling me by that name makes me wanna jump into his lap and kiss him all over. I blush. "We're married now?" My voice is scratchy._

 _"Sure. We could be," He scrapes the cigarette with the bottom of his shoe and sets it on the ground next to us. He looks down, the mood has shifted. I'm ready for a mini panic attack because I don't know what he's gonna say, and he's about to say something serious. Our moods aren't matching like they usually are._

 _"We could be married, happy, in love."_

 _"We_ are _in love," I say as I grab his hand. He's cold._

 _"Or we could just be the typical teenage relationship that the rest of the world doubts; will be on our separate ways after graduation; you'll be an architect, I'll be a Historian. We'll no longer be together after some stupid break up over if I actually checked out Punzie's ass or not. You'll meet a new man and fall in love, more than anything I can ever do, and I'll be on the History channel. We'll forget about this. We'll forget about us. We wouldn't have been able to prove the rest of the world wrong by showing them that a messy relationship with messy teenagers can work out. We'll be a stereotype."_

 _I didn't know what to say._

 _"After months and months of us saying that we will grow up together happy, we might not..."_

 _"Stop talking."_

 _"What happens if we don't stay together?"_

 _"Are you breaking up with me?"_

 _"Never. But what if you break up with me?"_

 _"Never," I said. Never in all hell. Never in a million years. Never ever ever._

 _"I love you is what I'm trying to say, Elsa."_

 _I scoffed, scrapped my cigarette on the ground with my foot and pounced up from the ground. "You sound like you're describing that life will be grand if we broke up and went on our separate ways."_

 _He got up, towering over me. His eyes are red. "But what I'm saying is that I don't want that. Are you kidding? Life without you is bullshit. It's not life, it's hell."_

 _"Than what are you saying?"_

 _"What I'm saying is I don't wanna end up like how they say we'll end up. We're different"_

 _I embraced him after that. I didn't even let him speak right after I just hugged him tighter than I've ever hugged him._

 _And as we embraced one another for about twenty-five to thirty-one seconds the wind began howling and storm clouds began to appear._

* * *

His arms are crossed, a scowl look of disapproval written all over his lips. Hair slicked back with gel and freckles scatter his nose. The irises in his eyes twinkle so suddenly as he shifts in chair in front of me.

"You know, Elsa," says he, "I've told you-"

"I know, Dr. Snow. I messed up..." My eyes travel towards the carpet in my room; it hasn't been cleaned since...

His inky black hair sway in a way that makes me feel nauseous. The room is shifting in ways that would make anyone trip over their own feet. Why am I here?

"Elsa."

I look up again, startled at his serious tone of voice. He's been talking and I wasn't even listening.

"Yes?"

He inhales a wave of stuffy air, throws his hands up and stands to his feet. The brown in his eyes turns darker. "Elsa," he croaks, "This is what I'm talking about."

The more and more I get yelled at the more and more I could hear the thundering roars of the storm clouds in the background. The room is starting to fill with frozen rain drops, and the clouds crackle in my brain. What is this? Where is my mind taking me?

Over the booms of lightning and sparks that echo in my head, I could faintly read the words on Dr. Snow's lips reading: "This is getting out of hand... You can't go like this anymore... Like I said our last session- two weeks ago- we're looking into putting you in a different ho... No more..."

"He's not coming back."

The rain clouds in my room burst into pits of laughter, mocking my taste in defeat. The ground rumbles and my mind pictures more and more images of him... before he decided to leave...

* * *

 _"NO NO NO!"  
_

 _There's blood stained everywhere..._

 _"DON'T GO, DAMNIT!"_

 _The wind blew us off the road..._

 _"YOU STAY WITH ME! PLEASE PLEASE DON'T GO! STOP!"_

 _Fits of hail pop tunes on the sun roof..._

 _"YOU PROMISED WE'D BE TOGETHER! YOU PROMISED!"_

 _I was never able to hear his last words..._

 _"Life without you is bullshit... It's not life... It's hell..."_

 _The wind..._

* * *

"You know, Elsa," Mother starts, "I didn't raise you to be like this."

"Your mother is right, Elsa," Dad agrees and slams his fist against the dining room table making my sister flinch. "You can't be staying up in your room all day and evening, smoking, drinking, not thinking about the fifteen fucking missing assignments you were supposed to turn in a month ago!"

Dr. Snow holds out his hand to my father, signaling him to lower his voice. My father abides. "No more sugar coating this bullshit! You were supposed to grow up to be a strong, bold, independent woman! But what are you now?! A senior acting like a kindergartner! You're not independent, you're trash!"

"That's enough now, Walter," Mother scolds.

He pounds his feet to the ground, stomps over to me with the most horrific scowl in his eyes, and points his finger in my face. "It's because of that darn boy dying now is it?"

His question makes my ears perk in sudden curiosity to what his fat lips have to say next. He smirks at the attention I give him.

"That's right... It's all his fault..." His body circles around me and suddenly I can hear the ear popping booms of the thunder that day in my head. My face is going pale.

"That stupid, waist of life is whats making my daughter act this way." He grins, saluting me. Sweat droplets fall from his forehead. "Glad he's gone now! Good _RIDDANCE_!"

I slapped him.

Sure I was hit back; so what my father threw me outside into the cold rain; it's okay he locked all doors, screaming at the top of his lungs "nobody disrespects me in my household, little girl!"; I'm used to it.

* * *

 _"It's raining..."  
_

 _"No shit."_

 _He grins at me._

 _We enter the car, I kiss him on the cheek as he buckles in, and he drives._

 _"Where do ya wanna go, baby," he asks, driving this piece of junk out of the parking lot of the park._

 _I think for a moment. Where do I wanna go? Hmmm... Oh yes!_

 _"As far away from this place as possible."_

 _He smiles wide, and that's when I began to hear him less and less. His teeth sparkles in the midst of the second. "What place would that be, Snowflake?"_

 _I tap my chin. "Portland."_

 _"Oregon?"_

 _The corners of my lips widen in satisfaction of the thought of leaving everyone I know behind._

 _"Oregon it is than!"_

 _The wind begins to howl some more, and he then asks to roll the windows down._

* * *

"Els..."

I turn my head up to see my sister holding car keys to her black charger. My hopes flopped and looked down at my knees.

"Lets go for a ride."

* * *

 _The wind grew more rough._

 _The windshield wipers can't go fast enough for him to see where he's driving._

 _"Hey, babe?" I'm trying to tell him, he just keeps moving his mouth, looking straight ahead like he could actually see where he was going._

 _Showers of water come into the car and make my jeans wet._

 _"We should just... stop." It's dangerous. There's no other cars on this freeway, and I could feel the car running off the road... but he still speaks as if I could still hear him._

* * *

Anna brings me to him.

His grave is the only one I see, and when I do, I jump out of the car to take a closer look at him.

Flowers, cards soaked in rain, many different gifts from his mom's side of the family buries the stone that marks his name.

* * *

 _He moves the steering wheel towards the right, face red._

 _When the car flips twelve times into the ditch, I could hear his voice cry for help._

* * *

Jackson Overland Frost

1990-2008

Loving brother, son, and friend to many.

* * *

 _The glass of the Windshield shatters and cuts both of us; We land on a fallen tree; boulders and rocks crush his skull in front of me._

* * *

I never knew what Jackson's last speech was. I never knew what his final GPA was. I never got to learn what his first child would ever look like. But most of all, I never got to hear what his final words were before the car flipped into that ditch.

My eyes burn with tears as I look down at his grave. Life without him is bullshit... It's not life...

"It's hell."


End file.
